Other than toxic GenX, what else is in the river?

Friday

Jul 28, 2017 at 5:35 PMJul 28, 2017 at 5:45 PM

Researchers continue to raise questions about other compounds in the Cape Fear

By Adam Wagner GateHouse Media

WILMINGTON -- Scientists and health officials are very quick to say just how much they do not know about six other perfulorinated compounds a research team located in the Cape Fear River -- several at significantly higher levels than GenX, the Chemours-owned chemical that has caused much concern in the region during recent weeks.

Among those scientists is Jamie DeWitt, an East Carolina University professor of pharmacology and toxicology who has studied GenX and other similar emerging chemicals. While quickly admitting scientists know "next to nothing" about the compounds, she also believes their chemical makeup indicates they could pass through the body quicker than more established chemicals in the same class, such as C8, which GenX replaced in Teflon and other familiar products.

"That's about all we could say," DeWitt said, "and it's based on an untested assumption about what we think we know about how chain length contributes to toxicity and half-life."

Just because an emerging chemical might pass through the body quicker than some of their more established counterparts does not mean they are safer alternatives. In the process of passing through the system, the compound would be taken in somehow.

"Some of it will stay behind," DeWitt wrote, "and do whatever it is these compounds do. The question is, what do they do, even in small amounts? And what does this mean in terms of health risks?"

'Lost in the process'

Scientists believe the non-GenX compounds identified in the same 2016 study that indicated the C8 replacement has been found in the river are also emanating from Chemours' Fayetteville Works facility about 100 miles upriver from Wilmington.

"One group of fluorinated altenatives, perfluoroalkyl ether carboxylic acids ... was recently discovered in the Cape Fear River ... downstream of a PFAS manufacturing facility," according to the study, which had several authors, including N.C. State University Professor Detleff Knappe.

That group of acids includes GenX and the other six compounds, while the facility identified in the report is the one belonging to Chemours. GenX, in fact, makes up about one-half of one percent of the total amount of chemicals found in the Cape Fear River.

A pair of acids that appear at much higher concentrations than GenX -- PFMOAA and PFO2HxA -- are not removed from water by activated carbon, according to the study.

Those chemicals may not be receiving as much attention, Knappe wrote in a note, because their names are significantly more difficult than GenX.

Officials' discussion about drinking water standards, Knappe noted, is often tied to the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services' 140 parts per trillion advisory level for GenX alone. The department has not set drinking water standards for the other compounds located in the 2016 study.

"What gets lost in the process," Knappe said after a forum this week, "is the recognition that a lot of the other chemicals are present at much higher levels, and we need to understand a lot more about the presence of those chemicals and their health effects."

'The thing we know most about'

Mandy Cohen, the N.C. DHHS secretary, told Wilmington-area officials Monday that her agency shares their concerns about the non-GenX perfluorinated compounds, but that efforts to understand them have been stymied by a lack of information.

"When we look at how little you know about GenX," Cohen said, "this is the thing we know the most about, and we actually know very little."

The state, she added, is trying to answer basic questions about those other compounds, including whether Chemours' agreement to stop discharging GenX-laden water into the Cape Fear means the other compounds will also no longer be discharged into the river.

"What we're trying to do," Cohen said, "is follow the science and react to the science we do have, but not overreact in places we don't have science."

Reporter Adam Wagner can be reached at 910-343-2389 or Adam.Wagner@GateHouseMedia.com.